During the early years of American settlement, a new form of English was beginning to develop in the islands of the West Indies and the southern part of the mainland, spoken by the black population. The beginning of the seventeenth century saw the happening of the slave trade. Ships from Europe travelled to the West African coast, where they exchanged cheap goods for black slaves. The slaves were shipped in terrible conditions to the Caribbean islands and the American coast, where they were in turn exchanged for such products as sugar and molasses(糖蜜). The ships then returned to England, completing an “Atlantic triangle”of journeys, and the process began again. Britain and the United States had outlawed the slave trade by 1865, but by that time, nearly 200 years of trading had taken place. By the middle of the nineteenth century, there were over four million black slaves in America.
The policy of the slave-traders was to bring people of different language backgrounds together in the ships, to make it difficult for groups to plan rebellion. The result was the growth of several pidgin (混杂语言) forms of communication, and in particular a pidgin between the slaves and the sailors many of whom spoken English. Once arriving in the Caribbean, this pidgin English continued to act as a major means of communication between teh black population and the new landowners, and among the blacks themselves. Then, when children came to be born, the pidgin became their mother tongue, thus producing the first black Creole(克里奥尔语) speech in the region. This Creole English rapidly came to be used throughout the cotton plantations (种植园), and in the coastal towns and islands.
小题1:Which of the following shows the route of slave trade correctly?
A．Europe West African coastthe Caribbean islands and the American coastEurope |
| B．EuropeWest African coastEuropethe Caribbean islands and the American coast |
| C．West African coastEuropethe Caribbean islands and the American coastEurope |
D．West African coastEuropethe Caribbean islands and the American coast West African coast |
小题2:It can be inferred that the slaves in the same ship ____.
| A．didn’t communicate with each other |
| B．could understand several languages |
| C．spoke different languages |
| D．came from the same place |
小题3:Creole speech comes from _____.
| A．Spanish and English |
| B．English and an African language |
| C．a European language and an American language |
| D．an African language and an American language |
小题4:What is the text mainly about?
| A．The history of slave trade. | B．“Atlantic triangle” of journeys. |
| C．Languages spoken in America | D．The birth of black English |
West African coast
West African coast